http://www.jimplagakis.com/?p=6359
This is a blog from my friend Jim Plagakis… it describes a independent Pharmacist that is being targeted by the DEA… why ?.. because this Pharmacist had the audacity to build a very legit chronic pain practice.
This Pharmacist’s protocol for accepting – yes accepting a pt into the pharmacy practice – and what the protocol is for a patient to continue to be part of this pharmacy’s practice… is published on this blog… personally … I was extremely IMPRESSED .. with what this RPH was doing… I would be very surprised if this RPH had a single bogus pt in the pharmacy’s patient list… If one slipped in.. I don’t think that they would hang around for long..
Imagine that.. a Pharmacist that would DISCHARGE a pt from the pharmacy practice.. if the patient did not follow protocol…
This RPH’s crime?… dared to order more opiates than the DEA THOUGHT that should be ordered by a pharmacy of its size…
I sensed a few months ago that we were entering a period of rampant indiscriminate denial of care/service for those who need control meds.. especially chronic pain pts.
IMO… the DEA’s actions … are like … a surgeon trying to do delicate surgery with a CHAIN SAW or Metal chop saw…
From what I understand and am seeing is that the DEA is only “attacking” those pharmacies that provide meds to pts in the community.. those in hospitals or nursing homes are not a target — at least not for now ! If this is true.. is this some more of our government’s discriminatory application of our laws…. just like the recent disclosure of how the IRS was putting excessive hurdles in the way of conservative groups trying to get non-profit status..
This is all the while that a portion of our society.. does not want terrorists – who are trying to kill us – to be exposed to aggressive interrogation technique .. to get valuable information… calling it torture…
and now another portion of our society has pull “pain” into the abortion argument … as to how old a fetus is when they start “feeling pain”.. as the reason if/when/how abortions should/could be done..
I find it hard to understand how our society can be opposed to inflicting pain/torture on “human beings” … yet at the same time.. has no trouble in denying those in chronic pain,.. the best that our medical system has to offer… to help minimize their pain ..which will improve their quality of life.. how hypocritical…
Or is this the preamble of Obamacare and the so-called “death panels” that could come with it… or is this how premiums are going to be lowered… “cutting off” patients that need “high cost care”?
IMO.. this whole process with the DEA… smells like a rottening body… and I think that we need to do to the DEA that we would do to a rottening body.. you either bury it.. or cremate it..
I still feel that the mere charge of the DEA … is UNCONSTITUTIONAL .. in that it is interfering with our Constitutional right to pursuit happiness… if you believe that a quality of life and happiness are one and the same.
Filed under: General Problems
This is happening in New Mexico as well . Pain contracts state we have to use but one pharmacy but then that pharmacy is out and it takes days to change…meanwhile suffering and health effects from wds and loss of jobs, more.This country has srsly lost its way.
[…] I recently wrote about Cardinal Wholesaler “cutting off” the controls to one of its Medicine Shoppe Franchisees… https://www.pharmaciststeve.com/?p=3929 […]
I’m not a pharmacist but I am a pain care advocate in Florida and I can tell you that every person with legitimate chronic pain is having tremendous problems in filling their opiate medications here. I agree with all of you that is very inhumane . The DEA has said that this shouldn’t be harming legitimate patients but it is and they know it is. I wish some one could help fix all these problems or tell us patients what we can do about it. Here in FL pharmacists say the medications are not coming in their orders and some say they don’t bother with trying to order it. Many have taken care of patients for many years are telling them, they can’t fill for them anymore. When they lose these pharmacies, then all the other pharmacies say they are not taking any new patients, so all pain patients are screwed and have no place to turn anymore. The access issues are now NO pain medications for anyone in FL. Many patients are facing withdraw or are in withdraw now. This month has done everyone in. Something has be done here or suicides will surpass overdoses or worse, patients may turn to the streets for relief. Very sad. Thanks for having this blog.
Steve, I’m a Long Term Care pharmacy owner and every month I have to beg my wholesaler not to short my oxycodone order in the last week. It’s shameful that I sometimes have to hold back orders for hospice patients and post surgery patients in my rehab facilities. I’m told that I go over my quota and I need to prove how many Rx’s I fill per month. I do this almost every month and I’m still not sure what my quota is… I can’t believe we are all so traumatized by these rules when we simply are trying to do our job. The DEA is doing their job, but where were they when the OxyContin reps were in full force in the 90’s and doctors started to get softer with their C2 writing? I feel doctors need to be better educated so that we don’t carry the burden of becoming the narcotic cops.
[…] Pharmacist Steve: Is the DEA targeting Everyone and Anyone? […]
Nothing surprises me anymore, keeping pain meds from suffering people is like keeping cancer medications from people in much need of them. I can compare similar treatments of different diseases but it does no good.
To keep pain medications from improving a suffering persons life in just like torturing them. Keeping much needed pain relief from suffering people is like torturing and terrorizing them, installing pain@ fear in them .
How can this be happening in this Free Country of America. I thought we were free to manage our life in anyway we see fit. But this right to be pain free is being taken away from us. I’ve sat here in the background watching it happen slowly and surely over the past 10 years.
Whoever is responsible for this should be ashamed of themselves.
I would not wish chronic pain on anyone. Why is our own Country making it difficult if not impossible for us that have chronic pain get the medications we need to keep from suffering .
I suggest an email to the Center for Peer Review Justice, http://www.PeerReview.org .
[…] https://www.pharmaciststeve.com/?p=3929 […]
Steve, you have phrased the problem exactly: “I find it hard to understand how our society can be opposed to inflicting pain/torture on “human beings” … yet at the same time.. has no trouble in denying those in chronic pain,.. the best that our medical system has to offer… to help minimize their pain ..which will improve their quality of life.. how hypocritical…”
The denial of pain meds to patients in severe pain is the equivalent of inflicting pain on them. If a person were to grab someone off the street and torture them, they would be arrested and sent to prison. But, here is the DEA denying pain meds to people in severe pain. Thus, the DEA is torturing people! We have too many government agencies, like the DEA, that is completely ‘out of control’.